Scholars sometimes struggle to assimilate history through only archeological and geological evidence. With the evolution of human history and the invention of writing, historians find a more facility in studying the civilizations that kept written records in terms of reassembling past events and having a more scrupulous understanding of early civilizations, no more based on assumptions. Written work, however, generated a new problem to historians: reliability. To know what is accurate in old literature is a challenge because it implies differentiating objective work from one’s own perspective in a writing. It also means the separation of invented past events and events that truly happened. Herodotus’ historical narrative called Histories that
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Because of his Greek origin, he is more likely to have the most relevant information about the people, their character and their military strengths and strategies, which makes his sayings automatically valid. When it comes to the source’s objectivity, it is obvious that Demaratus has no benefit in advancing erroneous statements or in praising Spartans’ endless obedience to the law and military resistance. In the contrary, after they banished him and denied his previous rights and privileges and made him “a fugitive without a home” and after the Persians welcomed him in their lands and gave him a shelter and a position in their own society, he would normally have a very reluctant feeling toward the Spartans, and the Greek in general, “but little affection to my countrymen” in his words. In a matter of fact, we would fear a subjectivity in his point of view in the other extreme. Thus, him asserting that the Greek might be hard to overcome is totally crossing out the hypothesis of any kind of subjectivity in the source’s words. Moreover, what he says was not in his self-interest. It was very risky for Demaratus to make such claims because if the Persian king had been irritated at his word, he could have easily executed him. Therefore, Herodotus believes that the defector speaks the truth about the ferocious fight the Spartans could lead, “the plain truth and nothing else” …show more content…
“The puranas provide no information about the Krishan’s, Indo-Greeks and Indo-Parthians. They do not give dates of the events. The names of the kings and rulers of the various dynasties are very confused and not systematic.” (Chaurasia, 2002, p. 15) It, thus, opened a debate amongst scholars that generated a division later on on whether to give importance to the puranas in making an understanding of Ancient India’s history or to solely consider them religious texts and folktales. In fact, in The puranas the author, talking about the Indian scholar Vans Kennedy said: “ Vans Kennedy, in whose opinion the puranas are and always were purely religious books, of course refused to detect the slightest historical element in them”. (Rocher & Gonda, 1986, p.
Because of his Greek origin, he is more likely to have the most relevant information about the people, their character and their military strengths and strategies, which makes his sayings automatically valid. When it comes to the source’s objectivity, it is obvious that Demaratus has no benefit in advancing erroneous statements or in praising Spartans’ endless obedience to the law and military resistance. In the contrary, after they banished him and denied his previous rights and privileges and made him “a fugitive without a home” and after the Persians welcomed him in their lands and gave him a shelter and a position in their own society, he would normally have a very reluctant feeling toward the Spartans, and the Greek in general, “but little affection to my countrymen” in his words. In a matter of fact, we would fear a subjectivity in his point of view in the other extreme. Thus, him asserting that the Greek might be hard to overcome is totally crossing out the hypothesis of any kind of subjectivity in the source’s words. Moreover, what he says was not in his self-interest. It was very risky for Demaratus to make such claims because if the Persian king had been irritated at his word, he could have easily executed him. Therefore, Herodotus believes that the defector speaks the truth about the ferocious fight the Spartans could lead, “the plain truth and nothing else” …show more content…
“The puranas provide no information about the Krishan’s, Indo-Greeks and Indo-Parthians. They do not give dates of the events. The names of the kings and rulers of the various dynasties are very confused and not systematic.” (Chaurasia, 2002, p. 15) It, thus, opened a debate amongst scholars that generated a division later on on whether to give importance to the puranas in making an understanding of Ancient India’s history or to solely consider them religious texts and folktales. In fact, in The puranas the author, talking about the Indian scholar Vans Kennedy said: “ Vans Kennedy, in whose opinion the puranas are and always were purely religious books, of course refused to detect the slightest historical element in them”. (Rocher & Gonda, 1986, p.